“For over thirty years and at the onset of the
21st Century, Robert Smithson remains one of the most influential and original artists whose voice has had a major impact on artists of his generation, and continues to do so today. His complex ideas took root in many forms: drawings, projects and proposals, sculpture, earthworks, films and critical writings. Smithson's provocative and seminal works, made in the mid-sixties to early seventies, redefined the language of sculpture.”

• Born in 1938 in New Jersey
• Went to art school in New York
• Studied drawing and painting
• Many of his early works were influenced by magazines, science fiction and early pop art.

• Smithson became associated with the minimalist movement, and soon became interested in the connection between land and art.
• Artists such as Sam Durant, Lee
Ranaldo, and Mike Nelson were influenced and inspired by Smithson’s work.
• Died July 20th, 1973

- He has had many solo exhibitions all over the world, Including:
- 1966, Dwan Gallery in New York
1980, Centre d’art contemporain in
Geneva Switzerland
- 1996, Galleria Emi Fontana in Milan
Italy.

• Smithson has been apart of numerous group exhibitions including,
– 1970, Against Order, Chance and Art ,
Institute of Contemporary Art,Philadelphia
– 1980, Watermarks , Scottish Arts Council
Touring Exhibition by RobertCallendar &
Elizabeth Olgilvie
– 2008, The Sublime is Now , La Galleria
Civica di Modena, Modena, Italy (film,
Spiral Jetty)

• Considered Smithson’s most famous work of art
• Constructed in 1970
• In Salt Lake City, Utah. In the Great Salt Lake
• It is only visible when the water level drops (or is low) and can be seen from aircraft or even outter space.
• Smithson reportedly chose the Rozel site because of the red color of the water, and it’s connection to the primordial sea.
• The red hue of the water is due to the presence of salt tolerant bacteria and algae.

• his monumental earthwork was inspired in part when Smithson saw the Great Serpent
Mound, a Pre-Columbian Indian monument in southwestern Ohio.
• Since he was one of the “founders” of earthwork, this piece embodied his ideas about earthworks because it was IN the earth rather than on the earth

• spiral jetty

“Plunge” sculpture
“Terminal”
Sculpture
“Blind in the Valley of Suicides”
Drawing

• Smithson’s Spiral Jetty preservation is/was funded by Dia Art Foundation.
• Many museums all over the world fund
Robert Smithson exhibitions and hold them to very high regard.
• The term earthworks wouldn’t be what it is today without Smithson.

• The official Robert Smithson website: http://www.robertsmithson.com/index_.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smithson http://www.diacenter.org/sites/page/59/1384 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Jetty